Five for Friday!

Boy oh boy, it sure has been a while since I've linked up with Five for Friday! This week was back to school for us after Easter break and that means back to regular blogging. :)

Our first craft of the term (linked to our phonics focus) were these gorgeous handprint monsters.  If you've read my blog before you might know that I love anything monster themed, and these cuties were no exception!

We simply painted each kidlets' hand - they got to choose which fingers were painted - and printed them onto paper.  When they were dry the googly eyes were glued on and a mouth drawn with marker.  Each little monster has it's own personality!

We also made these cute apples from paper plates.

Just paint, cut, staple and you're done! These turned out so well, but seriously - I need to invest in a paper plate factory  I go through hundreds of them every year!

To go along with our /m/ focus we wrote about our monsters, choosing an adjective to finish the 'My monster' sentence starter.

We also worked on a letter m Alphabet Puzzle.

These were perfect for an independent group work activity.

Don't you love it when kidlets return after holidays and haven't forgotten everything they've learnt during the year?  During during Guided Reading this week we revised rhyming words with 'To Rhyme or Not to Rhyme' made by the very clever Brooke!

My Preppies blitzed this activity!  They said each picture names and then quickly decided which mat the card belonged to.  One happy teacher. :)

Tomorrow is ANZAC Day, a time when we remember fallen Australian and New Zealand servicemen and women.  Today our school held a very moving service to honour those who have died  fighting to protect the truly wonderful country we live in.  When we got back to our classroom, my kidlets wrote the word 'Remember' and drew pictures to represent ANZAC Day.

This picture shows a poppy, a sprig of rosemary, a wreath of flowers, and a soldier standing tall and proud.  

That's all from me today, friends.  Be sure to come back on Sunday to check out my post for the 'Swap, Share, Give' linky that a bunch of us Aussie bloggers have planned! 

Our Week in Photos!

This post is brought to you by the wonderful condition called 'Sunday Afternoon Laziness'!  I took lots of photos this week and have lots of fun activities to share... but am feeling too lazy to organise them as anything other than a photo dump with quick captions. I hope you'll still find an idea or two that you'll be able to use in your classroom. :)

Tumbling Chimps is perfect for fine motor fun! I found it at Big W - they have lots of cheap games that would be wonderful for the classroom.

Kidlets used bingo dabbers to dot over a line...

...and if they had time, cut along the line through the middle of the dots.  Fine motor and scissor skills all in one!

 Tracing this week was with our new Scentos markers! Had to remind them not to sniff the pen directly. :) The room smelt so gorgeous all week.

New favourite maths game? Dino Dash!  This super fun game works on early addition concepts, or you can use it as a counting game for those who still need that practise.

We played Beach Bingo (part of Mel's bundle) - working on numbers to 10. 

My kidlets loved making a Flip Strip from Cara's pack!  This week we matched quantities to 5 as our easy review task.

We worked on representing numbers in different ways using counting cubes and ten frames.  I called a number, the kidlets built it and then told me how they had organised their cubes - 6 might be 3 and 3; 4 and 2; 5 and 1 etc.

During Literacy groups we played Stretchy Snake Bingo -  I love this as phoneme blending practise.  The caller says each word as individual sounds, and the kidlets have to blend them together to figure out if that picture is on their card.

It was a bingo kind of week - we played Brooke's Alphabet Bingo, using wooden letters drawn from a bag instead of calling cards.  

Our sight word work was stamping with playdough!

We used the pocket chart to sort Letters, Words and Sentences - this was a whole class activity that will be reviewed with an independent cut & paste task this coming week.

Last but not least - I love these colourful vases of flowers that we made as part of our phonics work.

Phew! That's all from me, friends. :) Enjoy the last of your weekend!

A Very Colourful Five for Friday!

What a wonderful week it's been!  We've had so much fun in Prep with lots of colourful activities.  Time for Five for Friday to share the fun.

Inspired by a pin from Kindergarten Smiles we made monster paintings as part of our phonics work this week.  They are so simple to make - just fold a large piece of paper in half and have the kids blob paint on one side.  When they re-fold it, they can rub their hands gently over the paper to blur the paint together.  Make sure you watch their little faces as they unfold their painting! They'll be absolutely amazed to see their results. :) When they dried, we gave each child some paper circles and asked them to glue them on as monster eyes.  I just LOVE the way they turned out!

How gorgeous is this guy?!? To me he looks just like a monster peeking over the top of the card, complete with pink hair, purple horns and a blue face. :)

We brainstormed some adjectives that could describe our monsters and each kidlet chose one that they wanted to match their painting. These guys are going to look amazing on display in our classroom!

Speaking of monsters, our Alphabet Monster was hungry this week! I cooked up some Alphabet Soup for him, full of veggies and letters.

Wouldn't you know it, he wasn't interested in the veggies at all and only wanted to eat the letters!

Kidlets took turns using the tongs to grab a magnetic letter, identify it and then feed it to the monster. Some of my little learners (ok, lots!) are still working on letter recognition so we are doing lots of alphabet activities.

As well as letter recognition we're also working on confidently spelling our names using a capital letter only at the beginning. During small group time kidlets used bingo dabbers to dot over their names, and we talked about the letter sequence and the correct direction to form each one.

I bubble cut around them and they brighten up our Library corner nicely!

 We worked on the /j/ sound as part of our phonics program so of course needed a craft to match!  This jellyfish craft was super quick and easy.  We cut some paper plates in half and the kidlets painted them with bright watercolours.  When they were dry we glued on some crepe paper tentacles.

Sorry about the awful photo, my camera doesn't like the fluorescent lights!

We added another poem to our Poetry Journal on Thursday.  This week was 'Five Little Ducks'.  We read the poem together on the carpet, and this time I chose a special helper to point to each word as we said it.  Back at their desks we sang/read the song again and pointed to the words on the journal copy.  I think our next poem will go in the pocket chart so we can work on sequencing and editing by adding capitals and punctuation.

I was so proud of my drawing, but the kidlets set out to draw one better than mine!

I love this one, kind of looks like relaxed ducks on a tropical island. :)

That's all from me, friends. I'm off to see 'Wicked' this afternoon and I'm super excited! I'll be back tomorrow with a wrap up of the fun we've been having in small groups. Happy Valentine's Day!